Nobody makes movies like Mario Bava – this is a fact that I used to be very thankful for, since I understood the appeal of Bava’s work, but could never quite get on board with the effusive praise cinephiles layered on him, constantly being reluctant to embrace him, because while his work was certainly unique,…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
Welcome, Or No Trespassing (1964)
Kostya (Viktor Kosykh) is a rebellious young boy who finds himself constantly at odds with everyone around him. Presumably to keep him out of trouble, he’s sent to a communist pioneer camp for children, where he gallivants with his fellow campers, much to the chagrin of Comrade Dynin (Yevgeniy Yevstigneyev), the over-strict head counsellor who…
Down with Love (2003)
New York City, 1962 – the Swinging Sixties have yet to make their way across the pond from London, meaning that society was still run by prim and proper, family-style values. The arrival of Barbara Novak (Renée Zellweger) signals quite a significant change. Her humble roots are in Maine, where she gradually put together a…
The King of Staten Island (2020)
Scott Carlin (Pete Davidson) is a young man who is lost in a world he doesn’t quite understand. He’s the self-professed “King of Staten Island”, based on his upbringing in the titular New York City borough, which he considers to be one of the most singularly uninteresting places in the country, yearning to get out,…
Last Holiday (1950)
“Dying is easy, comedy is hard” – no one truly knows where this popular adage comes from, but it been espoused by countless people across the decades, all of which remarks on the challenges that come with doing comedic work, and how it tends to be the most significant, but worthwhile challenge for any actor,…
End of Sentence (2020)
Frank Fogle (John Hawkes) has just lost his wife after a long battle with cancer. Before she passed on, she left Frank with one last task – to take a trip to her native Ireland with their son to scatter her ashes over a river that holds some significance to her. The problem is that…
Da 5 Bloods (2020)
We don’t need to escalate You see, war is not the answer For only love can conquer hate You know we’ve got to find a way These lyrics have been etched into the public consciousness through Marvin Gaye’s seminal cry for order and understanding in “What’s Going On”, a song that relates quite significantly to…
Black Peter (1964)
Peter (Ladislav Jakim) is an aimless young man who seems to lack any sense of direction. He’s pressured by his parents (Jan Vostrčil and Božena Matušková) to get a job, particularly by his overbearing father, whose belief is that the only person worth any time is a working person and that one can’t truly be…
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
We’d all be privileged to know exactly what resided in the mind of Jacques Demy – I don’t think there are many filmmakers who placed as significant emphasis on both style and substance as him, with his films always being marvellous examples of both beautiful form and incredibly-compelling stories that traverse genres and conventions to…
What a Way to Go! (1964)
Louisa (Shirley MacLaine) is the world’s richest woman, she is willing to do absolutely anything to strip herself of that title. She was raised in comfortable poverty, and has always aspired to lead a very simple life, relying on nothing but the bare essentials – but as we see in the first few moments of…
The Postmodern Pelican 